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The air cracked.

Not loud. Not thunderous. Just...final.

It rippled out from me in a wave, in a pulse of something red and jagged and primordial. The kind of power that doesn’t ask for permission. It punished. It took. This kind of magick should have been impossible–I hadn’t had penetrative sex yet. My powers should still be under lock and key. But they’d been growing, ever since I’d met the Sins.

“Holy shit–” I think it was Pride. I dismissed it.

Everything narrowed down to Xavier, who whined like the little bitch he was while Envy and Greed held him down.

It wasn’t fire, not yet. But the heat crawled up my spine like someone had uncorked the sun. My mom made a strangled sound in her throat as my feet lifted slightly off the ground, hair twisting in an invisible wind.

“Her eyes–” Gluttony whispered, entrances.

“You followed me,” I said to Xavier. My voice was two tones layered over each other—mine own, and something deeper. “You stalked me. You lied to me. You fuckingkilledme.”

Xavier stuttered. “I—mean I clearly didn’t. I just wanted?—”

“You wanted control,” I snapped. “And you lost it.”

All other noises ceased to exist.

“Juniper, please. Get control or you might take out the city block.”

Gluttony’s voice was calm, tinged with vampiric persuasion that I’d never been able to physically see before, but now I could–a teal spark that carried out of his voice toward me.

It enraged me.

How dare anyone try to control me.

Everything burned.

The sky cracked overhead like a snapped bone, golden lightning veining through clouds swollen with power. My veins sizzled with it—too much, too wild. The world throbbed in red. My feet hovered above the ground, and I couldn’t hear anything but my heartbeat and the hum of something ancient clawing its way free.

Until a soft growl cleaved through the chaos.

It wasn’t threatening. It was low and guttural, a sound that vibrated in the space between worlds. The shadows behind me twisted, coiled, and then sprang to life.

Was that...was thatDamon?

The shadowcat emerged from nothing, eyes gleaming violet and endless. The moment I looked into them, the fury inside me hiccupped. Not stopped—never stopped—but caught for just a breath.

He pounced.

A black mist unfurled, racing along my body like silk soaked in ice water. It didn’t smother the power—itredirectedit. Contained it. Absorbed it into his abyssal form, his body rippling with blood-red lightning as he snarled and arched like a great cat caught between dimensions.

I dropped like a stone.

But I didn’t hit the ground.

Damon caught me in that breathless void between heartbeats, and with a final pulse of dark energy, the world blinked out—park, Pride, Lust, Xavier, mymother—gone.

Replaced by cold marble, warm firelight, and the echoing silence of Gluttony’s manor.

I collapsed onto the velvet rug, gasping, body drenched in sweat and trembling. My skin felt too tight. My magick had no skin.

The other Sins stumbled in beside me, each one deposited like cargo in varying states of disarray. Lust hit the nearest armchair with a groan. Greed cursed as Envy tripped and nearly fell on his face. Pride landed on his feet, naturally. Gluttony emerged last, cloak swaying behind him, pale and grim.

“I’m going to kill Xavier,” I rasped, voice raw from screaming.